B flat major

Today’s song is Angel of Music, a lovely piece from the musical The Phantom of the Opera and this was a special request from one of our young stars of the forthcoming High Five Spanish series with whom I’m working this week. ¡Espero que te guste, ‘Marina’!

Today’s song is Barry Manilow’s Mandy, dating from 1974. This song was actually previously recorded as Brandy by Scott English in 1971, but it didn’t really find fame until Manilow’s recording. Since then it has been covered by Johnny Mathis, by Kai Hyttenen in Finnish (as “Leena“), by Karel Gott in Czech (as “Jsou svátky“) and by Westlife in 2005.

Today I’m playing Elton John’s classic Rocket Man which was released 6 days before I was born, on 14 April 1972. It tells the story of an astronaut not so much as a hero, but as an every day character who misses his family while travelling hundreds of miles above the earth. Elton John performed this song at the launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1998.

Today I’m playing my own arrangement of some of the music from the soundtrack of the 1991 film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves written by Michael Kamen. I think the opening music in the film is one of the best film themes. My arrangement includes the Maid Marian theme which returned at the end of the film in the form of the classic Bryan Adams song Everything I Do (I Do It For You) which I played back in 2010.

Today I’m playing the theme from the cartoon Top Cat which I remember fondly from my youth. Having done my research before posting the tune I’m amazed to find that there were only ever 30 Top Cat episodes made, so I must have seen all of them many times!

It’s time for another 80s classic from the “year of years”, 1987. Today I’m playing T’Pau’s China In Your Hand. The lyrics make reference to the story of Frankenstein, and according to the lead singer, Carol Decker, when you hold a china cup up to the light you can see your hand through it, so “china in your hand” refers to something as transparent. I’ve played the song in B Flat major, but interestingly the released version is half way between B Flat and B, because the speed of the recording was increased to reduce the running time of the single!

Il Cielo In Una Stanza, or as I first heard it performed by Carla Bruni, Le Ciel Dans Une Chambre is a beautiful melody, and Bruni’s interpretation is perfect. Having researched the song a bit to post it today I’ve discovered that it was originally written in Italian by Gino Paoli and recorded by Italian singer Mina in 1960. However, the composer criticised the original Mina version when he heard Bruni’s version in 2010, claiming “Mina sings it the same way she would sing the phone book. I don’t know if she understands what she sings”. I hope I’ve played this a bit more musically than the piano equivalent of a phone book!

Today I’m playing a song which I first heard over 30 years ago being performed by BoneyM. It’s the Swahili song Malaika and it’s one of the most widely known of all songs in Swahili. The word malaika means “angel” and the song is the song of a poor young man who has fallen in love but who can’t afford to marry his “angel” because the dowry price is too high.

Today I’m playing the Wiz Kalifa song See You Again which was recorded as a tribute to actor Paul Walker and featured in the 2015 film Furious 7 from the Fast and Furious franchise. The song remained at number one in the Billboard Top 100 for 12 weeks and also reached number one in many other countries.